The Rockefeller Foundation and Yale professor Jacob Hacker found just over 20 percent of California's households experienced major economic losses in 2011. That's a decline of 1.4 percent, and it is a tenth of a percent better than the national decline.

The economic security index is updated once a year and looks at changes in household income.

"We define a big drop as a 25 percent or greater drop from one year to the next," said Hacker. "So this is people who experience either a very large loss in income, or a very big increase in their medical spending or the amount they spend to deal with their financial debt."

The recession is still squeezing the financial health of one in five California households, according to the study.

Nationally 26 states had declines, 18 states had no significant change and four states saw increases. Hawaii and Alaska are not included in the report.

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